Oak  Street 
UNCLASSIFIED 


Volume  II 


APRIL-JUNE,  1916 


Number  3 


Published  by  Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 
Issued  Quarterly 


BULLETIN  OF 

RANDOLPH-MACON 
WOMAN'S  COLLEGE 

LYNCHBURG,  VA. 


"The  College  Woman  and  the  New  Epoch" 

BY 
PRESIDENT  MARY  E.  WOOLLEY 

Mount  Holyoke  CoUese 


Entered  as  second-class  matter,  January  5,  1915,  at  the  post-office  at  Lynchbarg,  Virginia, 
under  the  Act  of  August  24,  1912. 


BULLETIN 


OF 


Randolph-Macon 
Woman's  College 


The  College  Woman  and  the  New  Epoch  " 


PRESIDENT  MARY  E.  WOOLLEY 
Mount  Holyokc  College 


Published  by  Randolph-Macon  Woman's   College 
Lynchburg,  Va. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2013 


http://archive.org/details/thecollegewoniannOOwool 


The  College  Woman  and  the  New  Epoch 


M 


By  President  Mary  E.  Woolley 
Mount  Holyoke  College 

Y  SUBJECT  for  this  evening  was  chosen  and  partly 
thought  out  before  I  received  a  copy  of  the  interesting 
address  on  "  The  Southern  Woman:  Past  and  Pres- 
ent, ' '  given  by  Professor  Mims  at  your  last  commence- 
ment. If  it  had  not  been,  I  might  have  brought  you  something 
besides  a  woman  to  think  about  again  this  evening.  Yet,  I  am  not 
sure.  Realizing  the  opportunities  opening  before  women,  nay 
rather,  the  insistent  demand  which  is  forcing  itself  upon  them, 
seeing,  perhaps,  even  more  clearly  than  young  women  can  see  for 
themselves,  the  possibilities  of  greater  development  than  has  al- 
ready come,  it  would  have  been  difficult  for  me  to  resist  the 
temptation  to  bring  ''  the  woman  "  once  more  on  to  your  plat- 
form. 

This  time  she  is  the  College  Woman,  of  whom  I  hope  you  have 
not  wearied,  although  you  know  her  so  well.  She  has  not  been 
long  on  the  stage.  We  are  liable  to  ignore  that,  and  take  her  for 
granted,  quite  as  if  she  had  always  existed,  forgetting  that  the 
entire  movement  for  the  higher  education  of  women  is  compassed 
within  one  hundred  years.  A  century  ago  the  educational  world 
had  not  risen  to  the  conception  of  Matthew  Vassar,  the  concep- 
tion which  led  to  the  founding  of  Vassar  College,  that  ''  woman, 
having  received  from  her  Creator  the  same  intellectual  constitu- 
tion as  man,  has  the  same  right  as  man  to  intellectual  culture 
and  development."  In  fact,  until  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  common  schools  of  Massachusetts  very  seldom  ad- 
mitted girls,  and  then  only  two  or  three  hours  in  a  day  after  the 
boys  were  dismissed  or  during  the  summer  months  when  there 
were  not  enough  boys  to  fill  them,  occasionally  the  hours  being 


*An  address  delivered  before  the  faculty,  students  and  friends  of 
Eandolph-Macon  Woman's  College  on  Founders'  Dav,  which  was  cele- 
brated on  March  13th,  as  March  12th,  the  birthday  of  Dr.  W.  W.  Smith, 
fell  this  year  on  Sunday. 


4  Bulletin 

from  five  to  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning.  It  says  much  for  the 
intellectual  zest  of  our  great-great-grandmothers  that  in  New 
London,  Connecticut,  twenty  young  ladies  were  enrolled  in  this 
five  o'clock  a.  m.  school.  That  the  town  fathers  occasionally 
suffered  compunctions  of  conscience,  is  evident  from  some  of  the 
t0T\Ti  records,  notably  those  of  Gloucester,  Massachusetts,  1790, 
which  direct  the  master  to  ' '  begin  his  school  from  the  first  day  of 
April  to  the  last  day  of  September  at  eight  o  'clock  in  the  morning 
and  close  at  six  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  or  any  eight  hours  in 
the  twenty-four  as  shall  be  thought  the  most  convenient,  but 
that  two  hours,  or  a  proportionable  part  of  that  time,  be  devoted 
to  the  instruction  of  females — as  they  are  a  tender  and  interest- 
ing branch  of  the  Community,  but  have  been  much  neglected  in 
the  Public  Schools  of  this  town.*' 

It  is  not  my  thought  this  evening  to  trace  the  development 
of  this  interest  in  the  education  of  the  "  tender  and  interesting 
branch  of  the  Community,"  its  expansion  from  a  willingness  in 
the  late  eighteenth  century,  to  give  a  fraction  of  time  in  the 
common  schools,  to  the  opening  in  the  early  nineteenth  century 
of  academies  like  Monson  and  Derry  and  Bradford,  admitting 
girls  as  well  as  their  brothers,  and  sending  into  the  man 's  college 
the  sturdy,  well-prepared  boys,  to  become  leaders  among  the  men 
of  the  century;  or  its  further  development  into  the  conviction 
that  for  girls  as  well  as  for  boys,  there  must  be  a  chance  for  some- 
thing more  than  the  common  school  and  the  academy,  the  convic- 
tion which  led  men  like  William  "Woodbridge  and  Joseph  Emer- 
son to  throw  their  influence  on  the  side  of  "  improvement  in 
female  education,"  and  women  like  Catherine  Beecher,  Emma 
Willard  and  Mary  Lyon,  to  give  their  lives  to  realize  the  ideal 
of  the  same  educational  opportunities  for  girls  that  were  given 
to  their  brothers.  Nor  was  this  movement,  appreciable  about 
1820,  still  more  marked  between  1830  and  1840,  confined  to  the 
North.  The  Wesley  an  Female  College  at  Macon,  Georgia,  was 
probably  the  first  authorized  to  grant  degrees  and  many  institu- 
tions were  founded  in  the  South,  a  development  cut  short  by  the 
Civil  War.    To  understand  what  has  been  accomplished  in  these 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  5 

latter  years,  one  has  only  to  look  at  a  college  like  this  one,  whose 
Founders'  Day  we  are  celebrating. 

It  is  good  to  turn  backward  with  our  wreaths  of  laurel,  our 
palm  branches,  for  the  men  and  the  women  who  wrought  that 
we  might  enjoy  the  fruit  of  their  labors — it  is  better  to  go 
forward  in  their  spirit  to  even  larger  things.  The  college  woman 
has  ceased  to  be  a  novelty,  she  is  accepted  more  or  less  seriously 
in  all  sections  of  the  country,  in  all  phases  of  our  life.  But  today 
there  is  a  new  significance  in  being  a  college  woman.  ''  When 
the  sun  went  down  on  July  31,  1914,  it  went  down  on  a  world 
on  which  it  was  destined  never  to  rise  again, ' '  said  Nicholas  Mur- 
ray Butler. 

There  is  no  one  so  rash  as  to  attempt  to  predict  what  ^'  to- 
morrow "  will  bring,  but  no  one  is  so  lacking  in  vision  as  not  to 
realize  that  it  will  bring  new  demands,  heavier  responsibilities, 
than  ever  before. 

I  often  think,  as  I  look  over  the  head  lines  of  the  morning 
paper,  of  those  other  morning  papers,  only  two  or  three  years 
ago,  when  it  frequently  happened  that  very  ordinary  events  were 
magnified  to  sufficient  proportions  to  make  an  appearance. on  the 
front  page.  Now  what  a  relief  to  overstrained  nerves  and  over- 
wrought sympathies  it  would  be  to  see  inconsequential  details  in 
place  of  the  daily  record  of  the  world  tragedy. 

And  as  a  corollary  to  that  world  tragedy,  we  hear  much  of 
''  Preparedness."  ''  What  the  country  needs  most  of  all  is 
Preparedness."  Preparedness — for  what?  For  living?  For 
a  higher  and  more  enduring  civilization?  These  are  questions 
which  a  stranger  from — let  us  say  Mars — might  ask,  if  visiting 
for  the  first  time  this  "  great  round  world  "  of  ours,  of  which  he 
had  heard,  which  he  knew  had  been  in  process  of  physical  pre- 
paration for  aeons,  and  for  hundreds  and  even  thousands  of  years 
had  been  inhabited  by  human  beings,  presumably  engaged  in 
learning  the  art  of  living.  "  What  we  need  most  of  all  is  Pre- 
paredness. ' '  It  would  be  natural  for  him  to  assent  and  the  more 
impressed  he  was  with  our  civilization,  the  more  hearty  would 
be  that  assent.    "  Of  course,  preparedness  on  an  ever-increasing 


6  Bulletin 

scale,  that  humanity  may  reach  greater  heights  than  it  has  yet 
attained." 

But  this  perfectly  natural  interpretation  of  our  distant  cousin 
from  ]\Iars  is  not  the  meaning  which  is  usual  today.  As 
Mr.  Anson  Phelps  Stokes  says  in  an  illuminating  article  on  ' '  The 
Question  of  Preparedness,"  in  the  January  number  of  *'  The 
Yale  Review" :  "In  preparedness  there  is  only  good ;  in  Prepared- 
ness both  good  and  bad.  The  difference  may  be  compared  to  that 
between  the  word  conservation  written  with  a  small  c  and 
a  large  C,  or  prohibition  written  with  a  small  p  and  a  large  P. 
In  each  of  these  three  cases  a  generic  word  of  long  history  has 
suddenly  been  seized  upon  by  a  group  of  men  to  advance  some 
specific  ideal  of  national  scope,  which  they  have  exalted  to  a 
position  of  dominant  importance  and  at  the  same  time  restricted 
in  meaning  within  narrow  limits." 

The  thought  of  preparedness  which  I  bring  to  you  this  evening 
is  of  preparedness  with  the  small  p,  the  interpretation  which  our 
cousin  from  Mars  would  give  if  he  heard  the  word,  preparedness 
in  the  large  sense,  to  meet  the  challenge  of  the  world's  new  epoch. 
The  challenge  will  come,  already  comes,  from  every  side  of  our 
modern  life,  from  the  home  and  the  school,  the  workshop  and 
the  study,  the  city  ward  and  the  church,  home  and  education,  in- 
dustry and  profession,  politics  and  religion,  we  cannot  escape 
it,  wherever  we  go,  whatever  our  work.  And  it  will  be  a  world 
challenge,  as  never  before.  Our  imaginations  are  mercifully  in- 
capable of  grasping  the  full  significance  of  what  has  been  called 
'*  the  collapse  of  Europe,  the  breakdown  of  civilization." 
"  When  I  think  of  those  soldiers  in  trenches,  exposed  to  all 
manner  of  discomfort  and  hardship  and  disease  as  well  as  danger 
and  of  the  other  armies  of  the  homeless,  made  up  of  helpless 
women  and  children  and  decrepit  old  people — I  feel  as  if  I 
could  not  knit  fast  enough!  "  said  a  friend  last  year  as  her 
needles  flew.  The  time  is  coming  when  every  man  and  woman 
with  a  spark  of  interest  in  humanity  and  in  the  progress  of  the 
world  will  feel  that  he  or  she  cannot  knit  fast  enough,  to  knit 
up  again  this  intricate  web  that  we  call  civilization.  And  a 
double  responsibility  will  rest  upon  the  men  and  women  who 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  7 

have  had  the  advantages  of  education,  in  other  words,  upon  the 
strong. 

The  strength  to  meet  the  new  epoch  has  a  physical  side.  You 
may  remember  that  Emerson  says  in  his  essay  on  Power:  '^  For 
performance  of  great  mark,  it  needs  extraordinary  health.  If 
Eric  is  in  robust  health,  and  has  slept  well,  and  is  at  the  top  of  his 
condition,  and  thirty  years  old,  at  his  departure  from  Greenland 
he  will  steer  west,  and  his  ships  will  reach  Newfoundland.  But 
take  out  Eric  and  put  in  a  stronger  and  bolder  man — Biorn  or 
Thorfin — and  the  ships  will,  with  just  as  much  ease,  sail  six 
hundred,  one  thousand,  fifteen  hundred  miles  further  and  reach 
Labrador  and  New  England.  There  is  no  chance  in  results. 
With  adults,  as  with  children,  one  class  enters  cordially  into  the 
game  and  whirls  with  the  whirling  world;  the  others  have  cold 
hands  and  remain  bystanders ;  or  are  only  dragged  in  by  the 
humor  and  vivacity  of  those  who  can  carry  a  dead  weight.  The 
first  wealth  is  health.  Sickness  is  poor-spirited,  and  cannot  serve 
any  one;  it  must  husband  its  resources  to  live.  But  health  or 
fullness  answers  its  own  ends  and  has  to  spare,  runs  over 
and  inundates  the  neighborhoods  and  creeks  of  other  men's 
necessities." 

How  can  one  hope  to  meet  the  demands  of  tomorrow  without 
the  "  first  wealth  "  of  which  Emerson  speaks?  It  is  true  that 
some  fine  tasks  have  been  performed  for  the  world  by  those  who 
were  physically  handicapped,  but  that  does  not  invalidate  the 
statement  that  physical  unfitness  is  a  handicap.  Many  a  man — 
and  woman — of  earnest  purpose  and  marked  ability  have  seen 
their  ambitions  and  aims  in  life  come  to  nothing  because  the 
body  failed  at  the  critical  moment,  or  because  there  was  no 
physical  reserve  to  carry  through  that  which  was  so  well  planned. 

The  strength  needed  to  meet  the  new  epoch  is  not  alone  or 
even  chiefly  physical.  We  hear  a  great  deal  today,  and  rightly, 
about  preparation  for  efficient  service,  but  preparation  for  serv- 
ice does  not  consist  simply  in  the  ability  to  be  a  good  workman, 
to  understand  one's  "  job,"  whatever  that  may  be.  That  is 
eminently  to  be  desired ;  all  along  the  line  the  need  is  for  workers 
who  know  how  to  do  and  find  the  joy  in  work  which  comes 


8  Bulletin 

naturally  from  achievement,  thus  both  giving  more  to  their  work 
and  gaining  more  from  it.  But  since  the  world  began,  there 
has  never  been  a  time  when  progress  was  not  dependent  primar- 
ily upon  the  mind  directing  the  work,  upon  the  thinker  behind 
the  thing  accomplished.  To  the  outsider  it  may  seem  like  bring- 
ing coals  to  Newcastle  to  talk  at  a  college  to  college  women  about 
the  importance  of  developing  the  power  to  think,  but  those  of 
us  who  have  been  longest  in  college  work  realize  that  it  is  the 
very  place  which  needs  that  emphasis.  Not  that  we  think  less 
in  college  than  anywhere  else — I  cannot  believe  that,  although 
we  are  sometimes  told  that  it  is  true.  If  I  did,  I  should  follow 
the  advice  of  a  certain  man — a  Southerner  he  happened  to  be — - 
who,  having  heard  that  I  had  made  one  of  those  apocryphal 
remarks  which  one  never  does  make,  that  a  working  girl  was  a 
better  home-maker  than  a  college  woman,  wrote  that  he  quite 
agreed  with  me  in  not  believing  in  education  for  women,  that  his 
v.ife  was  not  educated  and  he  intended  that  his  daughter  should 
not  be,  but  if  those  were  my  sentiments,  why  didn  't  I  give  up  my 
job?  It  is  because  of  faith,  not  because  of  lack  of  faith  in  the 
college  woman,  in  her  possibilities  and  in  the  possibilities  of  the 
college  for  her,  that  I  urge  this  new  stress  upon  the  deepening 
and  the  heightening,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  of  her  mental  powers. 
The  normal  college  woman  today  hardly  needs  new  emphasis 
upon  intellectual  breadth.  We  are  broad  beyond  anything  that 
our  grandmothers  dared  to  imagine !  But  we  have  not  begun  to 
plumb  the  depths  or  scale  the  heights  intellectually,  which  women 
may  achieve.  We  are  not  always  taught  that.  A  favorite  subject 
of  addresses  and  articles,  so  favorite  that  it  has  been  worn  almost 
threadbare,  is  that  the  feminine  mind  may,  can,  must,  should 
spread  over  the  surface  of  things,  be  broad,  but  that  if  it  attempts 
to  dig  or  aspires  to  soar,  it  is  doomed  to  disappointment  and 
failure. 

It  may  be  that  the  new  epoch,  on  whose  threshhold  we  are 
standing,  will  change  that  valuation,  at  least  it  will  add  new 
emphasis  to  the  need  of  change.  Who  can  tell  what  a  day  will 
bring  forth  in  this  crisis  of  the  world's  history?  A  crisis,  because 
it  is  deciding  whether  law  or  war  shall  govern  the  world,  whether 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  9 

might  is  right  or  right  is  might,  not  alone  in  the  political  relations 
but  also  in  the  commercial  and  industrial  and  social  relations  of 
humanity.  And  in  this  crisis  to  whom  shall  humanity  turn  for 
leadership?  To  ''  the  picked  half  million,"  was  David  Starr 
Jordan 's  answer  in  a  recent  lecture  at  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, quoting  from  William  Stead's  phrase  to  the  college  men 
of  Great  Britain.  '*  It  is  theirs  to  command  while  the  world 
must  obey."  '^  They  are  the  men  who  must  think  for  them- 
selves," continues  Doctor  Jordan,  "  and  the  man  who  can  think 
should  be  the  man  who  can  act.  To  this  potent  group  the  men 
before  me  belong.  You  are  among  the  chosen  million  of  America, 
and  to  you  I  wish  to  say  a  word  as  to  the  world  catastrophe  in 
which  you,  with  the  rest  of  the  civilized  world,  are  now  involved. ' ' 

'*  It  is  your  right  and  your  duty  to  see  things  as  they  really 
are,  with  the  eye  of  a  scholar  rather  than  of  the  partisan.  It  is 
your  privilege  and  your  duty  to  help  others  to  see  them  so.  The 
scholar  should  know  the  things  that  abide  in  human  affairs  and 
to  distinguish  them  from  those  that  are  temporary  and  illusory. ' ' 

*'  Never  in  the  history  of  the  world  was  the  need  of  wise 
leadership  greater  than  now,  never  were  the  stakes  so  great,  never 
was  blind  action  more  futile.  Effort  misdirected  may  do  harm  at 
times,  but  very  little  good.  '  Small  efforts,'  said  John  Stuart 
Mill,  '  do  not  produce  great  effects;  they  produce  no  effects  at 
all.'  Hence  the  need  for  strong  effort,  for  clear-headed,  uncom- 
promising wisdom,  and  the  possession  of  such  wisdom  is  the 
birthright  of  the  educated  man." 

Never  in  the  history  of  the  world  was  the  need  of  wise  leader- 
ship greater  than  now — hence  the  need  for  strong  efforts,  and 
for  clear-headed,  uncompromising  wisdom,  and  the  possession  of 
such  wisdom  is  the  birthright  also  of  the  educated  woman.  The 
women  who  can  think,  in  what  relations  of  life  are  they  not 
needed  ?  The  world  is  impoverishing  itself  as  never  before  in  its 
history.  We  hardly  need  the  reminder  that  "  the  picked  half 
million  in  many  nations  are  dying  in  the  trenches  today." 
Scholars,  historians,  scientists,  discoverers,  investigators,  inven- 
tors, the  patient,  laborious  seekers  after  truth,  those  who  possess 
the  genius  of  hard  work,  the  young  men  who  would  have  enriched 


1 0  Bulletin 

the  world  of  tomorrow,  the  old  men  who  were  enriching  the 
world  of  today,  laying  down  their  lives  by  the  thousands,  a 
tragic  outlook  for  civilization  save  as  the  New  "World  takes  vip 
the  work  which  the  Old  World  is  madly  unfitting  itself  to  carry. 
When  the  call  comes  to  the  youth  of  America — ' '  It  is  for  you  to 
take  the  places  these  men  should  have  filled,  to  stand  in  the 
ranks  of  constructive  workers  for  civilization,"  the  ''you"  means 
young  women  as  well  as  young  men.  It  includes  our  college 
youth  who  have  the  opportunity  to  dig  for  intellectual  treasures 
never  found  on  the  surface,  to  be  had  simply  for  the  asking,  the 
treasures  of  research,  of  investigation,  of  scientific  inquir}^  which 
shall  add  a  contribution  to  the  learning  of  the  world.  There  is 
no  reason  why  the  ranks  of  scholarship  should  not  include  more 
women,  why  historical  and  scientific  investigation  should  not  pre- 
sent a  field  for  which  in  many  respects,  they  are  peculiarly  well 
fitted.  Filling  the  mind  with  large  interests,  applying  native 
talent  for  painstaking  industry  to  some  investigation  that  will 
make  the  world  richer,  cultivating  the  powers  of  application  and 
concentration,  developing  the  habit  of  thinking  through,  not  only 
about  the  edges  of  a  subject,  this  is  the  power  which  the  world 
has  a  right  to  demand  of  the  college  woman  as  well  as  of  the 
college  man. 

Nor  is  the  need  of  this  power  limited  to  the  world  of  scholar- 
ship. "  To  think  clearly  is  to  act  rightly,"  says  Doctor  Jordan. 
Again  the  appeal  comes  to  us,  women,  as  well  as  to  men,  to  do 
our  part  ''  in  thought  and  action  in  this  the  greatest  crisis  of  the 
civilized  world."  What  is  our  relation  to  the  great  problems 
confronting  us  ?  Are  the  ' '  scholars  in  the  making, ' '  as  they  have 
been  defined,  using  every  opportunity  to  develop  the  power  of 
clear  and  profound  thought,  by  rigid  discipline  and  unremitting 
applicatoii,  that  they  maj^  be  ready  to  do  their  part  in  the  solving 
of  problems,  in  the  disentangling  of  the  entanglements  of  life? 
How  can  we  be  content  to  live  on  the  surfaces,  when  beneath  the 
surface  there  is  so  much  that  demands  the  best  that  is  within  us? 

The  new  epoch  calls  for  a  deeper  living;  it  also  calls  for  a 
higher  living.  ''  Dare  to  be  an  idealist,"  is  its  challenge.  "  Be 
yourself,  but  be  your  best  self."    We  are  so  afraid  of  not  being 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  11 

practical,  in  this  age,  so  afraid  that  we  shall  be  called  visionary, 
forgetting  that  ''  where  there  is  no  vision,  the  people  perish." 
'•  Where  there  is  no  vision  " — with  what  awful  accuracy  the 
prophet  delineated  life,  not  the  life  of  centuries  ago  only,  but  of 
our  own  day  and  generation !  Dare  to  be  a  visionary,  a  seer  of 
visions,  for  your  own  life,  for  the  life  of  the  community  in  which 
you  live,  for  the  life  of  the  nation  of  which  you  are  a  part,'  for 
the  life  of  the  world.  We  cannot  shut  the  world  out  tonight,  if 
we  would.  "  As  you  listen  to  my  voice,"  said  Dr.  Charles  E.  Jef- 
ferson to  an  audience  of  students  in  the  Middle  West,  ' '  you  hear 
the  groans  of  men  and  the  sobs  of  women  across  the  sea."  And 
even  in  the  midst  of  these  tragic  days,  we  are  to  keep  the  vision. 

"  I  do  not  believe,  for  an  instant,  that  war  has  falsified  our 
vision  of  peace,"  writes  Arthur  Christopher  Benson,  in  ^'  Escape 
and  Other  Essays."  "  We  must  cling  to  it  more  than  ever,  we 
must  emphasize  it,  we  must  dwell  in  it.  I  regard  w^ar  as  I  regard 
an  outbreak  of  pestilence;  the  best  way  to  resist  it  is  not  to 
brood  over  it,  but  to  practice  joy  and  health.  The  plagues  which 
devastated  Europe  have  not  been  overcome  by  philosophy,  but 
by  the  upspringing  desire  of  men  to  live  cleaner  and  more  whole- 
some lives.  To'  brood  over  the  war,  to  spend  our  time  in  disen- 
tangling its  intricate  causes,  seems  to  be  a  task  of  future  histor- 
ians. But  a  lover  of  peace,  confronted  by  the  hideousness  of  war, 
does  best  to  try,  if  he  can,  to  make  plain  what  he  means  by  peace 
and  why  he  desires  it.  I  do  not  mean  by  peace  an  indolent  life, 
lost  in  gentle  reveries.  I  mean  hard  daily  work,  and  mutual 
understanding,  and  lavish  help,  and  the  effort  to  reassure  and 
console  and  uplift.  And  I  mean,  too,  a  real  conflict — ^not  a  con- 
flict where  we  set  the  best  and  bravest  of  each  nation  to  spill  each 
other's  blood — but  a  conflict  aganst  crime  and  disease  and  selfish- 
ness, and  greediness  and  cruelties.  There  is  much  fighting  to  be 
done.  Can  we  not  combine  to  fight  our  common  foes,  instead  of 
weakening  each  other  against  evil?  " 

''  Who  can  set  a  limit  to  the  influence  of  a  human  being  T^ 
once  wrote  our  New  England  seer.  It  is  well  for  us  to  recall  his 
words  in  these  days  when  our  individual  lives  seem  so  small,  so 
weak,  so  impotent.    Who  can  set  a  limit  to  influence,  to  the  in- 


12  Bulletin 

fliionce  of  a  life  that  is  thoughtful  and  earnest  and  idealistic,  a 
life  that  finds  its  circumference  not  in  the  contracted  circle  of 
its  own  selfish  interests  but  in  the  welfare  of  humanit}^  whose 
centre  is  not  self,  but  the  Master,  For  the  college  woman  as  she 
faces  this  new  and  momentous  epoch  there  can  be  no  message 
more  full  of  meaning  than  the  message  of  our  great  New^  England 
IMshop  to  the  men  of  the  nineteenth  century,  transposed  for  the 
women  of  the  twentieth :  "  Oh,  do  not  pray  for  easy  lives.  Pray 
to  be  stronger  women !  Do  not  pray  for  tasks  equal  to  your 
powers.  Pray  for  powers  equal  to  your  tasks !  Then  the  doing 
of  your  work  shall  be  no  miracle.  But  you  shall  be  a  miracle. 
Every  day  you  shall  wonder  at  yourself,  at  the  richness  of  life, 
which  has  come  in  you  by  the  grace  of  God." 


3  0112  105927666 


